


black diamond lilies

by junesangie



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Brief Mention of Vomit, Closeted Character, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentioned Choi Jongho, Mentioned Choi San, Mentioned Jeong Yunho, Mentioned Jung Wooyoung, Mentioned Kim Hongjoong, Mentioned Song Mingi, Minor Choi San/Song Mingi, Multi, Non-Graphic Smut, Park Seonghwa Needs a Hug, Polyamory, instability, many types of imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27264058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junesangie/pseuds/junesangie
Summary: to preface his own destruction would unveil more than he’s prepared for. rosary beads tangle in his trachea, stifling disgust, swallowing granite till his lungs sink down the loss.he can’t breathe. apathy knits over a timely end, smothered in lieu of his betraying pleas. nobody hears him; nobody sees.
Relationships: Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	black diamond lilies

**Author's Note:**

> so, it’s lighte! this is my second publishing of a fic like this... something more pertaining to imagery instead of timeline. trigger warning just for some of the content inside!! if you decide to read, i hope you enjoy!

Seonghwa isn’t typically one to focus inward. Not on a daily basis, that is, or for matters such as this. More to worry about, he frets nearly all the time. There’s people to keep his eyes on, concerns to be had and to be proven foolish, tasks only he accomplishes without assistance because he never asks for it and doesn’t mind that it’s his job alone. So he keeps to himself, veils even the parts of his mind that are commonly explored earlier in life, and regains composure without having to wonder what the other members are up to in their rooms, doors shut and noise muffled enough while traveling down the hallways that he isn’t bothered much by their antics. Screaming may be common, but he doesn’t pay any mind to what sort of exclamations as they’re simply trifling business he has no need of answers to. Hunches tend to be correct on his behalf; there isn’t a lot to question about the glances shared or fingers entwined during post-practice rest, or even skinship that appears slightly more enthusiastic than months prior. No one speaks of it, really. Not that every member doesn’t have their own image of what blooms between them all at different intervals in time.

People like him have been taught not to meddle, and certainly never in the business of those disguising pieces of their own being. He’s quite sure none of them have much interest in the company’s method of pondering dating bans, if that’s anything to trace his clues on. And perhaps he hasn’t mentioned the secrets of his own, of his school’s hushed-up murmuring shared in huddled groups of frightened boys, all believing wholeheartedly in their own malfunction and disruption of society, each one gradually learning that  _ different _ did not need to mean lesser or unworthy. He recollects this with fervor, half-woven voices still whispering into his ears that he is dirty and unclean, unwanted by those who intimidate and despise those like himself. Burying his head in the sand, a terrified bird that cannot take flight from withered wings unable to carry a breeze, he understands that it has never been a fault of his own. 

It simply, endlessly, stings, dragging bare flesh against the gravel as he pretends to be something he wasn’t, never will become unless the screws that hold a rusting machine decide to cease the conflict with unfortunate finality.

People like Wooyoung, like Yunho—they’re aware and so proud, shame dismissed for idiocy because why should they fear who they are? Seonghwa watches them some days, steals flickering stares, leaves an earbud out or pauses cooking if only for a moment, just to be sure he isn’t lying to himself. But however many instances, the results remain unjust to his stance, his wording and actions paired like toast and strawberry jam in the most impossibly scornful way. 

They are not afraid, for the longest days they live will be here, spent frivolously with boys all grown as altered seeds, uprooted and sprouting suddenly among each other to create a multitude of delicious fruits and flowers. Consuming one another is commonplace, for each plum pit—every artichoke heart pulled clean of fleshy petals—cycles back into feeding the saccharine garden. He supposes he will starve until the sundial’s shadow dissolves. Then, beneath the blanket of night, he will stuff himself to bursting with plump, rich berries and tiger lily petals, juice cascading down his chin as he curses cowardice and self-loathing for greedy cravings, only to return next sundown and repeat this process with increasing revulsion to his name.

A readiness pulses, thick and leaden, within him. As if it’s been preparing, polishing its mirrored surfaces that surround barren, whitewashed beaches all spanning tides of gray wisteria and spun sugar too thin for human hands. He curls each finger carefully, counting down as if a miracle will present itself out of the atmosphere he’s choking on. It’s repetition, a heartbeat impossible to resist thrumming beside while the rhythm speeds, jackhammering instead of whistling, such delicate palms suddenly stained with proof to back his disgusting reverie. Each night should suffer the moon’s darkest crescents transferred beneath starry pools. The filters conceal it, the camera screens, sandpaper brushes denouncing what he lacks. 

In deafening silence, Seonghwa pumps cleanliness back into his skin, the urge to defy this cycle his only reminder to be still and be ceaseless lest the others reject his dread.

They whisper, murmurs echoing throughout mindless ignorance, and he clenches pearled teeth so pressurized he fears they’ll become diamonds in his skull. Marble counters entice the masochism he chalks over. Would he enjoy the risk of dislocating vertebrae if this meant understanding the way Mingi and San had? Possibilities merge between his molars with intent, mints chewed in unaware impatience, forever cemented until a snaring tongue picks them free. Watching them embrace the secrecy is still foreign as godly entities, and he wishes the explanation—a textbook, perhaps the listed instructions—were free of compulsive liars who boldly rise from expectation to tear the silicon of frosted molds.

_ Don’t look at me, _ he spells out in the rainstorm glass, slotting inexplicably between a door and its paint-smothered frame.  _ I’m trying too hard, you’ll see right through the lies.  _ Somehow they don’t notice, and paranoia soaks through him like butter, oiled hinges crying out protests meant to be silenced till death. Whoever he’s become, evolved into from childhood—he left it so far behind it’s chasing the speeding train right off a cliffside, his own reclusive habits tearing him apart, setting a tissue paper body aflame as the wreckage billows smoke into a clear blue sky.

Desperation grows claws within his body, shredding him to ribbons, to  _ mush _ , each spoonful resembling the food he shovels down his throat. Anything to stick a locket over their mouths, refrain from speaking while chatter dies like trumpeter swans shot from the sky. He still burns, skin embers, voice a raspy choke below engrossing, ashy gray; they pay no mind, save a sparing glance that makes his digestion pause and churn repulsively. At lunchtime, he vomits up the heinous contact of their eyes, their skin though shielded in layers of cloth he cannot seem to fit. Always too tight, so suffocating. 

Lightheaded, he forgoes the help. Hongjoong’s grasp filters through his own, only a film remaining, grimy and slick as he decides his own cocoon, woven with no intention of becoming something glorious come morning.

Unspoken time blinks cruelly back into him, an agonizing speed that kneels to a dethroned monarch. His parents mustn’t be faulted, he recalls, for how could perfection yield such loathsome flaws? 

Shrinking from the hand he believes could be Jongho’s, accustomed to wakefulness past midnight, his wings are of sweat-damp sheets when he rises to meet the only person he’d never anticipated. Yeosang’s words strip him—teeth bared the second he is—when he lies exposed, stunned at his own pleading, deception anchoring him with the fern’s touch clutching his thighs. Wrenching them apart, murmurs offer apology dissolved with a weak tug at sun-bleached locks. Grimacing, acceptance steals him away; he tosses himself from a height obscured by his own explosion.

With a shuddering twist, the Milky Way sharing both irises pours down a warm throat, starlit rain dribbling past pretty lips, swallowing every drop of celestial being though he’ll never taste it all, never gather this within his belly and glow as if he’s even been kissed. There is a wince around the shaft pumping  _ him _ swollen with bitter regret; Seonghwa knows he tastes of anguish and remorse, and he nearly chokes trying to absorb the casing itself, younger self silently pleading with a twin to all crystalline effort for remission to stay denied.

Seonghwa isn’t the type to focus inward. But he’s played day in and out like the untuned harp he is—rare, glittering, useless. Wrecked with climax, shame is a finality he could learn to resent. 

He has no hatred for the boy sharing his grisly paradise, for angels come few and flutter far above his sooty feathers. He cannot hate Yeosang. 

He cannot hate someone so much like himself.

**Author's Note:**

> it took me weeks to finish this because of getting so stuck, but i think it ended alright. tell me what you think?


End file.
